crumble away, which is the special aspect of the period that the artist wished to present. Ronsard, in his "Préface sur la Franciade," after showing how the historian follows the actual fact at every step, while the poet devotes himself to what is possible and likely to be true, adds this excellent remark: Many people think that the historian and the poet pursue the same calling, but this is a great mistake, for they are two workmen who have nothing in common, except that neither the one nor the other may ever go contrary to the truth of things." So that upon both poetry and history, though aiming at different sides of truth, it is equally incumbent to be true. And indeed, in more than one sense poetic truth may be said to have the superiority over historical truth : "The difference between the historian and the poet," says Aristotle, "is not that one speaks in verse and the other in prose. The real distinction is, that the one relates what has been, the other what might have been. On this account poetry is more philosophical and a more excellent thing than history, for poetry is conversant with the universal, history with the particular." Aristotle is right, poetry is more general than history, and in this sense is more philosophical. But not in this sense only, for poetry has the same superiority over history that ideas have over facts, that mind has over matter, and that the human reason and conscience have over the blind course of events. This thought has been most eloquently developed by Bacon, who, not content with saying with Aristotle that poetry relates what might have happened, boldly declares that it relates what ought to have happened. Our introduction to the study of Shakespeare's Roman tragedies may fitly close with this magnificent passage from the "Advancement of Learning" (The Second Book, iv. § 2): "The use of this feigned history (as he calls poetry) hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points ་་ M wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical. Because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions, not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution and more according to revealed providence. . . . And therefore poesy was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind into the nature of things." ... crumble away, which is the special aspect of the period that the artist wished to present. Ronsard, in his “Préface sur la Franciade," after showing how the historian follows the actual fact at every step, while the poet devotes himself to what is possible and likely to be true, adds this excellent remark: "Many people think that the historian and the poet pursue the same calling, but this is a great mistake, for they are two workmen who have nothing in common, except that neither the one nor the other may ever go contrary to the truth of things." So that upon both poetry and history, though aiming at different sides of truth, it is equally incumbent to be true. And indeed, in more than one sense poetic truth may be said to have the superiority over historical truth: "The difference between the historian and the poet," says Aristotle, "is not that one speaks in verse and the other in prose. The real distinction is, that the one relates what has been, the other what might have been. On this account poetry is more philosophical and a more excellent thing than history, for poetry is conversant with the [ universal, history with the particular." Aristotle is right, poetry is more general than history, and in this sense is more philosophical. But not in this sense only, for poetry has the same superiority over history that ideas have over facts, that mind has over matter, and that the human reason and conscience have over the blind course of events. This thought has been most eloquently developed by Bacon, who, not content with saying with Aristotle that poetry relates what might have happened, boldly declares that it relates what ought to have happened. Our introduction to the study of Shakespeare's Roman tragedies may fitly close with this magnificent passage from the "Advancement of Learning" (The Second Book, iv. § 2): "The use of this feigned history (as he calls poetry) hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical. Because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions, not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution and more according to revealed providence. . . . And therefore poesy was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind into the nature of things." CHAPTER XVII. JULIUS CÆSAR. NONE of Shakespeare's three Roman tragedies would appear to have been printed before the famous folio of 1623, the first complete edition of his plays. There are sufficiently cogent reasons for thinking that "Julius Cæsar" was written at latest in 1601, which is the date of Weever's "Mirror of Martyrs," a forgotten poem recently discovered by Mr. Halliwell, which in all probability alludes to the most famous scene of "Julius Cæsar" in the lines: "The many-headed multitude were drawne His vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious?" And this discovery confirms an inference that had already been drawn by Payne Collier from Drayton's poem of the "Barons' Wars" (published in 1603), in which a passage occurs apparently inspired by the lines in which Mark Antony describes the character of Brutus (Act V., Sc. 5). The date assigned to the two other tragedies is that of about seven or eight years later. But even if external evidence were wanting in support of their relative order in point of time, it would be abundantly apparent from a comparison of the plays |